“Maybe the real disease is that people don’t know the difference between right and wrong.”
-Ali, Euphoria
So Euphoria Season 3 ended the same way it began, and the same way it proceeded for the six episodes in between: As a flaming hot mess.
By Episode 7, with the conspicuous exception of the buttoned-down Lexi (Maude Apatow), everyone from the last season’s cast is much worse off than before. And in the case of Nate, as worse off as you can get.
In Episode 8, Rue (Zendaya) does escape Laurie’s compound to be rescued by Alamo’s lieutenant, and with information provided to both Alamo and the DEA, the feds bust Laurie’s gang and Alamo’s crew steal Laurie’s drug stock out from under the DEA’s noses. But Alamo found out that Rue was a “rat” and while she was being treated for her injuries at his little clinic, gave her prescription Percocet that was laced with fentanyl. Rue goes back in town to hang with her recovery sponsor Ali (Coleman Domingo) but then sees a news report of her friend Fez breaking out of prison. She frantically tries to meet him at a rendevous point, then tries to get back to her Mom’s place, but as time and space distort, it becomes clear that she is having her last vision. Ali wakes up and finds Rue dead on the couch. For a little more than 30 minutes, the rest of the episode deals with the aftermath.
Ironically, Maddie (and by extension Cassie) is rescued from her fate of indentured servitude to Alamo when Ali shows up at the strip club in his Goddamn military uniform with a shotgun to call Alamo out and blow him away. And the only reason he walks out alive is because Alamo’s right-hand man Bishop knows Ali is in the right. And Ali looks up the Christian homesteader family that took Rue in at the beginning of the season to tell them what happened to her, and says Grace with them, bringing everything full circle as he sees Rue facing him at the head of the table. And showing us why Coleman Domingo gets all the big awards these days.
So while there is a happy ending, or at least a Good beats Evil ending, the whole thing is very depressing and disappointing because the show introduced deeply flawed but sympathetic characters who seemed like they might be able to get through life but ended up getting taken down, even despite their attempts to make good. And a lot of characters were not well served, either because they were too far removed from their previous stories (like Nate) or barely an afterthought (like Jules, who was a pioneering trans romantic lead in the first season). And while the passage of time between Seasons 2 and 3 created a contrast between the hopes of dysfunctional youth and the disappointment of dysfunctional adulthood, as I said it also made it clear that the actors in real life were in position to move on. Jacob Elordi has gone on to bigger and better things. Zendaya has all kinds of projects, some not involving Tom Holland. Even Sydney Sweeney has played roles like Christy Martin and Reality Winner that do not trade on her sexual image.
So, goodbye to Euphoria. Which gave us some pretty good acting, deeply weird-ass scenes, implausible plots and, of course, Sydney Sweeney’s tits.